Jo Ann Emerson filed for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri’s Eighth Congressional District this morning in Jefferson City.  Emerson, a Republican, has served southern Missouri in Congress since 1996.

“Representing the Eighth District in Congress is a tremendous honor, and I am very much looking forward to the conversation about the issues on voters’ minds that we will have over the next several months,” Emerson said.  “Our congressional district is diverse, we have unique strengths, we’re home to wonderful people, and our voice is very important in today’s political environment.  I like to think we come to the national political discussion with common sense on our minds, not hyper-partisanship or narrow interests.”

According to Emerson, the political environment in the nation’s capital has never been more challenging.

“The next two years are crucial to Missouri.  I’m entrenched in a fight to prevent cap-and-trade taxes on the gasoline and electricity we use in our homes and economy.  I’ve long been working to lower the price of prescription drugs and to expand health care in rural areas of our country, by rejecting huge government expansion of our health care system that eliminates choices for Americans.  And we need to see through some major contributions to our economic infrastructure that will create jobs and grow opportunity in southern Missouri.  The next two years will bear out many of these discussions.  I’m looking forward to being part of some real solutions for the American people.”

She also noted that national liberal political interests are targeting every Republican seat they can.

“In a year where conservatives are sure to pick up seats in Congress, Nancy Pelosi and the liberal establishment are going to fight for any and every seat they can get in order to cling to power in the House.  But I think the policies of the liberal left have been roundly rejected in southern Missouri, and I look forward to the opportunity to work on an agenda where the ideas of our district are given the credence and merit they deserve,” Emerson said.

Tom Leible Reporting

By Kathleen Berger

KSDK — An outraged U.S. Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson was in Farmington Friday to join a union protest over the release of undocumented workers.  The St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department took 14 people into custody at a construction site on Saturday, but let them go at the request of the U.S. Immigration Department.

Six days after the incident, framers for Thomas Construction out of Osage Beach were hard at work. They’re building a Hampton Inn in Farmington, the location where the Sheriff’s Department found 14 undocumented workers on the job. And local union workers make it clear where they stand. They’re protesting across the street and Emerson joined them.

Emerson says she’s pushing for tougher laws and enforcement. She says US Immigration’s focus is too one-sided, focusing on potential terrorists, not undocumented workers.

“How do we know if one of the 13 or 14 the Sheriff picked up wasn’t going to fit that profile,” Emerson said. “We don’t know if they’re terrorists and they said let them go. And they are taking your jobs, and no more can they do that.”

One St. Louis County union representative says several hundred of his members are out of work.

“I hear from people everyday. They can’t make their mortgage, can’t make their car payments. It hits home,” said Dan Willey, a spokesman for Labors Local 110.

The local unions are just as angry with Thomas Construction.

“He’s a bad public citizen; he’s bringing these illegal aliens in here on a tool trailer,” Willey said.

And St. Francois County Sheriff Dan Bullock says he’s upset that he had to be the one to set the undocumented workers free.

“It will also entice other contractors and corporations who will say, ‘hey they didn’t do nothing to these guys here, I’ll get some here for myself,’” Bullock said.

Thomas Construction has been quiet until Friday. The company says it had no idea undocumented workers were getting paid to work on their job site, and say they’re outraged by the news.

The company says one of its subcontractors hired the workers and now that subcontractor has been fired.

To see the whole coverage click here.

During the State of the Union address President Obama said he would be open to any good ideas to reform our health care system. Below are a few ideas I have to reduce health care costs while providing excellent standards of patient care.

· Allow small businesses to pool together to purchase plans at lower costs

· Pre-empt state insurance regulations that prevent individuals from buying the coverages they want

· Negotiate the bulk purchase of prescription drugs bought by the world’s largest drug customers, the U.S. taxpayers

· Stop waste, fraud and abuse of the Medicare and Medicaid programs

· Adopt meaningful tort reforms to limit truly frivolous lawsuits and exorbitant legal fees
· Add technology in rural areas, use new tools to reduce medical errors

· Increase training and jobs for health care professionals in rural communities

· Eliminate insurance discrimination based on age, health, or genetics

· Place greater emphasis on prevention and wellness

As we move forward with the health care debate, I hope the Democratic leadership will be willing to listen to some of these ideas and include them in a reform package. Let’s hope we can add a little Southern Missouri common sense to the process!

Thank you for your continued support!

Our national debt has reached an all-time high of $12.4 trillion dollars as a result of the huge government expansion under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. And now, Congressional Democrats want to raise our national debt ceiling by an additional $1.9 trillion. This is simply unconscionable.

If the debt ceiling is raised, our country will have a budget deficit of nearly $14.3 trillion! It’s outrageous and frightening to think of passing on such a staggering amount of debt to our children and grandchildren. I will fight the leadership’s push to expand our national debt.

It seems the Pelosi-Reid agenda has ignored the public’s disapproval for their out of control spending. Polls show that a majority of Americans agree that government should live within its means.

As an opponent of the Pelosi-Reid agenda of wasteful spending, expansion of government, increased tax burdens on hardworking Americans, and the massive takeover of our health care system, I will continue to voice my disapproval for these flawed policies.

Together, we will continue working to put the people of Southern Missouri, ahead of Washington politics.

Thank you for your continued support.

KY3 has a great story detailing the challenges illegal immigration poses for our local law enforcement officials. You can read the story about Ozark County Sheriff Raymond Pace’s efforts to enforce the laws here.

JEFFERSON CITY – Perry County’s representative in Congress Jo Ann Emerson (R-Cape Girardeau) received the Friend of Farm Bureau Award in a ceremony held at the 95th Missouri Farm Bureau Annual Meeting…You can see the rest of the article here.

As we gather in Southern Missouri to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ll be thankful for many blessings. The right to petition our government, however, is one that might not come up at the table before dinner.

Even if it falls in line behind our beloved family and friends, our health and our well-being, we should be thankful that our Founders were so thoughtful to include the right to petition our government in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That seemingly small protection holds a big key to our citizens’ democracy; every American has the right to lobby for laws that they feel are necessary and just.

The grassroots spirit is not only essential to responsive and responsible government, it is also the basic right that allows us to hold meaningful public debate on important issues. Most recently, on issues like health care, cap-and-trade and Second Amendment rights, public outcry has influenced the direction of debate in Congress. Civil discourse is a cornerstone of debate, whether that debate takes place in Washington, D.C., or in southern Missouri. (And, in fact, it is the debate in southern Missouri that holds far more promise of settling many of these issues in commonsense ways!)

Now, I would never suggest that you discuss politics over your Thanksgiving table, but staying informed is a basic civic duty along with voting and volunteering. So is being aware of the views of those who disagree with us and the arguments behind other Americans’ strong feelings. Without that public debate, we would have a weaker democracy.

So, too, would our democracy weaken if we lacked the means of getting news and multiple points of view out in newspapers, over the airwaves, and on the Internet. A policy like the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would allow the federal government to mandate the dissemination of specific news and views through the media, certainly runs counter to this goal. An interested, engaged, intelligent electorate creates a market on its own for timely, unbiased reporting and a range of views on it.

Armed with that information, it becomes our responsibility to give voice to our concerns. You can write to your elected representatives, you can organize your like-minded friends and neighbors, and you can even sue the federal government. These are long-upheld protections that form the foundation for our freedoms – not taking advantage of them assures you a place in the “silent majority” known only for not taking advantage of this right.

In other countries all over the world, dictatorial governments are not accountable to the citizenry. Not only is the expression of the people’s different views in those places not helpful, it can also result in imprisonment and persecution. Earlier this month, we marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and thanked the dedicated Americans in uniform whose unflinching resolve brought the wall down. Behind that Iron Curtain was a whole society without the benefit of the right to petition government as well as millions of people who died in the effort to obtain that right for their children and grandchildren.

So, on our American Thanksgiving, many of us will give thanks for living in America and for our representative system of government. We should also be mindful of our right to petition that government, and we should take advantage of that right whenever we can.

From the Suntimes News

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) today said Congress should stop ignoring federal transportation priorities in the wake of a multi-billion rescission of federal funds from states where they were allocated by a 2005 law. Missouri lost $202 million which was called back to the U.S. Treasury on October 1.

“I am extremely disappointed that an agreement was not reached to keep these dollars at work in Missouri and other states across the nation. Congress had ample opportunities to address this matter and to make sure those transportation dollars stayed in the states where they belong, but the majority in Washington isn’t getting the job done,” Emerson said.

She cited the importance of federal transportation support for Southern Missouri highways, bridges and other roads as the primary reason to extend the funds, also saying that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act was a disappointment in addressing transportation issues. Only ten percent of the federal stimulus dollars allocated by the bill have been spent.

“Here at home, our transportation infrastructure and our rural economy go hand-in-hand. Earlier this year, I opposed the so-called ‘stimulus’ bill because it didn’t address this priority, among other reasons. A bill that should have been about the infrastructure that forms the solid basis for our jobs and economy was instead turned into hundreds of billions in spending to grow the size of government,” Emerson added.

Emerson says this debate is as much about the way forward as it is about fighting to keep these transportation dollars in Missouri.

“We need to get back to basic economic priorities, like transportation infrastructure. Right now, my focus is on the upcoming transportation reauthorization and the selection of solid, needed projects to make sure Southern Missouri has the federal attention to create, continue and complete the transportation successes in our region,” Emerson said.